All About Crayfish

This year’s course is 4th– 5th July. Please get in touch to reserve a place.

This popular two-day course, set in the beautiful Mendip Hills in Somerset, is designed to give trainees a solid grounding in crayfish ecology and survey methods together with an insight into the latest conservation techniques. It covers all commonly used monitoring techniques with the opportunity to handle both native white-clawed and invasive signal crayfish and includes visits to rivers, stillwaters and ark sites. We discuss options for controlling invasive crayfish based on latest research with case studies from guest practitioners.

I have been providing this course since 2017 in partnership with Dr Jen Nightingale, who has more than 20 years’ experience as an ecologist and is the UK Conservation Manager at Bristol Zoological Society. Jen has been involved with crayfish conservation since 2008, and designed and developed a crayfish hatchery within Bristol Zoo Gardens that produces white-clawed crayfish for wild release and as brood stock for hatcheries. Jen studied optimising aquaculture and tracking of white-clawed crayfish for her PhD and is co-author of the Crayfish Conservation Manual.

Bespoke Training

I have been training volunteers for various projects since 2014 and can provide bespoke training to suit your requirements. For those looking for work experience or to volunteer in the countryside I usually have opportunities for people to get involved in crayfish projects in the south-west each year. Please contact me to discuss your training needs.